Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1887-07-29
FRIDAY MORNING. JULY, 20. 1887
"OUTRAGES."

1t is rather vexatious to those of the
press who are old enough to recollect how
the civil war came on. Or rather how its
symptoms began to manifest themselves,
to see at this late day-a quarter of GEN.
fury off-any of the same sort Of talk. We
suppose that in the daily press-that is to
say the s'infuential'' daily press-in
either section Of the country-you might
count on your fingers the number that en-
gage in the war revival talk, and they
seem to be working it merely as money
making, partisan sort of business; but in
the country paper line every little fellow
seems to be under the impression that he
must ssstaHd" by the s'lost cause" or the
"Union.' as if either were now the ques-
tion of the day. In our own section the
infantile editors seem to take peculiar
delight in comparing events which they
call ''outrages" and estimating what
would have been said of them if they had
occurred in the South, instead of the
NORTH. Well; what difference where it
happened i? America is the country we
are living in and any evil thing that hap
pens in either end of it is as disgraceful to
one section of it as to another. The world,
now, doesn't make the distinction of
North and South that it used to make. It
disgraces us all. If politicians and par
tizans at the North try and hold up some
evil that happens at the South as indi-
genous to the section. why just let them.
What harm can it do us. Pericles, who
was wise man in his day, was told that
he was being "abused" by his enemies. He
only said in reply, THAT is true, but I am
not abused.'' And so it is with US Of the
South; they may abuse us. but we are not
abused. The behavior of the South since
the civil war has been such that she can
not be abused. Silently, laboriouslY, stead
lily, with much of suffering, much of in
suit, much of poverty, she has risen to her
place in the Union. She bears no malice,
she nourishes no remembrance of wrongs.
she merely says to the other States: 81 am
here; here with my enterprise; here with
my millions of men, white and black; here
with the resources that have been undeve-
loped for centuries; here in light marching
Order.-no shams on my shoulder, no old
customs to weigh me down; [ am new
generation And with that she falls into
the line of the Nation.
If those who through jealousy. or old
time hatred, choose to abuse her, why let
them. 1t cannot hurt her; like Pericles she
stands too high-she cannot be abused.
Across the history of all nations and pee
pie, she has made her mark.
And now if the other section of the
Union, or rather the few blind and malig
nant partisans who are those who chose
to keep up the war feeling, just let us OF
the South hand over the work to them.
If their allies at the South like the same
work. let them take it; but let the people
of the South keep out of it. 1t is a
rather small piece of business any how; il
is, if it is anything at all, catering to an
ignorant prejudice, and it is STOPPING to
demagogery of which we should all be
ashamed. Cur business now is to hold uI
our country. Let those who think that
bitter criticisms will help that, give it
another thought.
There is but one interest that the South.
ern States have in the Union to-day, and
that is to keep it together, to make a
great country of it-a country in whose
fresh air and wide area she can rise to the
height of the true manhood that is in her.